KIHARA Keito defeats TAKEICHI Yusuke in all Japan final U73kg

In the only men’s category of the second day of the Junior World Championships at the Kasri Tennis Arena in Dushanbe, Judofans saw Japan shine again. The all-Japanese final U73kg between Yusuke Takeichi and Keita Kihara was laboured to begin with, both being penalised early for holding back their sleeves to avoid the grip. Takeichi then received another, for non-combativity. Kihara chose that moment to unleash a devastating left uchi-mata to throw his teammate for ippon and become junior world champion, a big step up from his 5th place last year.

The first bronze medal contest was fought by Manuel Parlati (ITA) and Mardon Ravshanov (UZB). Both have been on fine form all day, the kind of form needed to make it to a world championship final block. The Uzbek scored first with a sumi-gaeshi but the Italian didn’t let it slow him down. He continued to attack, trying a very low o-uchi which almost evened the scoreline but was given nothing upon video review. Despite several near misses on both sides, the single waza-ari sent the medal to Uzbekistan.

Abubakar Iusupov (IJF) and Muhiddin Asadulloev (TJK) fought it out for the second bronze medal in front of a loud and engaged crowd. The cheers for their competitor were fully charged but seeing good judo from anywhere increased the volume further. Almost immediately as the contest began, Asadullaev swept Iusupov with a near perfect de-ashi-harai, scoring waza-ari.

The incredible pace of this contest, spinning from blue to white, from attack to attack was magic to watch; impressive agility from both athletes. The score, despite Iusupov’s best efforts, was the only one present as the clock ticked down to zero and the audience erupted with joy. It was a bronze medal for Tajikistan.

At the end of day two, 7 champions crowned, 7 more still to discover, Japan have stormed into the lead on the medal table with 5 gold medals, ten medals in total.